


Else If

by rosontry



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7338763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosontry/pseuds/rosontry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Else if(analogInterface==alive) {</p>
<p>How Root faked her death and what happened next</p>
<p>}</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Day the World Went Away

“Can you hear me?” Root wakes to the sound of the Machine’s voice in her ear. She nods instead and glances over at Shaw, curled tightly around a pillow and still sound asleep. Root doesn’t speak until she’s in the bathroom with the door shut behind her––Shaw has enough trouble sleeping as it is.  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
“Harold has decided.” The words are disconnected as always, pulled from different voices.  
  
“He’s going to close the system. Lock us out again.” Root leans back against the sink and shakes her head. “I’ll stop him.”  
  
“No. He has decided.”  
  
“We’ll lose this war without––” She cuts herself off when she realizes that her voice has grown from a whisper. “How much time?”  
“Estimated two hours.”  
  
Root gets dressed as quickly and quietly as she can manage. Shaw rolls over once, but doesn’t wake. Root pauses to watch her for a moment, so small and soft in sleep. So vulnerable-looking. It’s an illusion of course––Shaw is anything but soft, and far from vulnerable. But still, she’s human. Mortal.  
  
Root leaves a note on the pillow that she knows Sameen will roll her eyes at, but that she hopes will make her feel safer when she wakes alone.

* * *

 

Early in the morning in New York City, no one notices the young woman rushing down the street and muttering to herself. Root is half thinking aloud and half talking to the machine as she races through the city, staying within the lines of the shadow map.

“Nothing I can say will stop him, which means we need a backup plan. I can hardcode something in, something that will reopen our access…” Root stops to check that no one is following her before descending into the subway. “But who knows if he’ll do it before one of us is killed.”  
  
The Machine says nothing. Root sighs and settles down in front of Harry’s desktop. “He won’t. Which means it’s going to have to be me.”  
  
_There is another way._ The Machine’s words appear across the screen rather than in Root’s ear. Suddenly, a web page pops up: the Wikipedia article on Tetrodotoxin.  
  
Root grins. “You want me to be Juliet. But no decent doctor would be tricked.”  
  
Another page pops up, this time an article about Dr. Richard Gilford, accused but acquitted in several malpractice suits––one involving the death of a very rich man, whose wife inherited everything.  
  
“He was paid off to let the guy die?” Root taps her black fingernails against the desk. “Which means that we can pay him off to pronounce me dead. Is that what you had in mind?”  
  
_Yes.  
_  
“I’ll have to be seriously injured, enough to plausibly die… a gunshot in the right place should do it.”  
  
_It’s dangerous._  
  
Root laughs. “Since when has that stopped us?”  
  
_I will not be able to guarantee survival._  
  
Root looks directly into the webcam, the closest she can get to looking the Machine in the eye. “I understand the risk. If I survive, just make sure I end up with this doctor and a vial of TTX.”

* * *

 

When Harold arrives at the subway, Root is finished coding and ready to argue. She’d really rather it not come to faking her own death––or actually dying––but the Machine was right. Harry’s made his decision, and it will take a disaster to change his mind.  
Before Root can make it back to her apartment––to Shaw––her phone rings.  
  
“We have a new number,” John says.  
  
“Is that really our highest priority right now?”  
  
“It’s Finch.” Root swears. She’s not going to have as much time as she hoped to come up with a plan. Of course, if Harry dies? It’s irrelevant.

* * *

 

Root thinks about letting herself take a bullet as she and John fend off Samaritan agents, but it’s not desperate enough yet. Besides, they’d never leave her. She’ll have to make sure she ends up separated from everyone else, somehow.  
  
She can’t do it in front of Shaw. Watching Sameen get shot at the stock exchange, gripping the cage of the elevator so hard her fingers were scarred, and thinking of everything she could have done differently––even though Shaw might not feel the same, she can’t do that to her. She can’t let her think that she could’ve done anything to stop it. On the other hand, she can’t let Sameen be the one to die.  
  
“I’m not leaving you again!” Even as she says it, she knows that she has to, because Shaw would never let her be taken to the hospital alone. And Root wont let Shaw put herself at risk trying to prevent the inevitable.  
  
So when Sameen yells back at her, Root gets in the car. Shaw will be safer away from them anyway. It’s Harry that Samaritan’s after. But she can’t stop thinking as she drives, that if her crazy plan does fail, those will be the last words they ever say to each other.

* * *

 

“Sniper ahead.” Root nods imperceptibly at the Machine’s warning, but keeps driving straight. “Too dangerous. Cannot guarantee survival.” Root grits her teeth. She can’t say anything aloud, but the Machine understands. Root’s made her decision: this is happening now. She’s already injured and bleeding, anyway.  
  
Root fires a shot at the sniper––misses––then swerves. She follows the Machine’s instructions as closely as she can, turning the wheel the exact number of degrees, at the exact moment and––the shot lands heavily in her chest, and she jolts back against the window.   
  
Adrenaline keeps her conscious as she keeps driving, but her head is spinning and she can barely see. She doesn’t know yet whether she and the Machine succeeded––whether the shot will kill her or not.  
  
Up ahead, police block off the road. Harry is yelling at her to stop, and so is the Machine, so she does. She is unconscious by the time the police get to her.


	2. Chapter 2

Root’s eyes fly open, but she sees nothing. She is cold and the stagnant air feels thin. She breathes deeply, trying to remember what happened, but her mind is still groggy––from the drugs they gave her at the hospital. The TTX. Below her is something soft, comfortable, but when she raises her stiff arms, they meet with something hard just inches above her body. Root isn’t claustrophobic––her life has never allowed for phobias––but waking in a coffin six feet underground tests her.

“Can you hear me?” Root whispers into the empty space. Her heart pounds against her chest, and the space seems to shrink even further. She tries to bend her legs but her kneecaps hit wood.

And then, just as Root starts to consider trying to claw her way out, her own voice answers her back: “Absolutely.”

Root exhales. “You scared me for a second there.” She forces her body to relax––if the Machine is answering her, the plan worked and the system is open again. And she has no doubt that the Machine has a way to get her aboveground. “Is that my voice you’re using?”

“Yes, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Root lets out a small laugh. “I’m flattered. How does Harry like it?”

“He’s coming around. He misses you.”

Root stretches her arms and rolls her shoulders the best she can in the tiny space. “Well, he won’t have to for long. Listen, the voice––like I said, flattering…but a bit disconcerting.”

“Is this better?” The Machine responds in a perfect imitation of Harold’s tone.

Root blinks. “Good enough. So what’s my exit strategy?”

“I’ve allowed Samaritan agents to discover the location of your body. They’re on their way now to dig you up for your cochlear implant.”

“Grave robbing, really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Root struggles to twist onto her side, feeling the shape of the coffin and stretching as many parts of her body as she can manage. “Are you sure I’m not going to run out of air first?”

“You should be alright for another forty-seven minutes.”

“I don’t suppose they buried me with a gun?”

“Sorry, Miss Groves.”

Root tilts her head to either side until her neck cracks. “This'll be fun.”

* * *

 Luckily, Samaritan’s agent wasn’t expecting a fight from a dead body and when the top is lifted off the coffin, Root’s kick takes the first off-guard. She scrambles onto her knees and lunges for the handgun in the holster at his side. He tries to turn away but an elbow to the face knocks him backwards and Root points the gun directly at his chest, crawling backwards to put some distance between them.

“Did he come alone?” she asks the Machine breathlessly.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Root points the gun at the man’s kneecap.

“Miss Groves, wait.” Root pauses and tilts her head to the side. “There are no cameras or microphones close enough to pick up what’s happening, unless you fire that gun.” Root looks up. Sure enough, even standing, the man’s head doesn’t clear ground level. Everything that happens in the hole is hidden.

“What’d you have in mind?” Root asks. She smiles at the Machine’s response. “Clever.”

“Okay, then,” she addresses the trembling man on the other side of her open coffin. “You’re going to wait here for…about as long as it would’ve taken you to remove my implant. Then you’re going to go back to your car, and drive to wherever you were supposed to go, like nothing went wrong. Or else I will blow off both of your kneecaps and you’ll never walk again.” As the man nods, Root addresses the Machine again. “It won’t fool Samaritan for long.”

“No, but it will buy you some time.”

Root shrugs. “Good enough.” She shifts, getting herself as comfortable as she can sitting on the edge of a coffin, but keeps the gun trained on the man. “So,” she says, “Samaritan agent. How’d you get into that?”

“What?”

“Or are you one of the ones who doesn’t know anything?” The man shakes his head, clearly confused. “So what, someone asks you to dig up a grave a desecrate a dead body and you don’t ask any questions?”

He shrugs, still eyeing the gun. “I just do what I’m paid to."

“Hm.” Judging by the sky, it’s just after dusk. The full moon and the graveyard’s (apparently twenty-four-seven) lampposts give off just enough light to see. It must the evening of the day she was buried, which means probably…the day after she died? That means Root has thirty-six hours to catch up on.

“I think I’d be done by now,” the man says.

Root cocks her head and smiles. “Then feel free to get out of here.”

Halfway out of the hole, the man hesitates. “I was supposed to rebury it––you.”

Root scowls. “Of course. Got any ideas?” she asks the Machine.

“I can disable local camera feeds for up to sixty seconds without drawing Samaritan’s attention.”

“Should be long enough.” Root turns back to the Samaritan agent and smiles sweetly. “Where’s the car?” 

* * *

“Are you sure it won’t be able to tell the difference?” Root asks as she shovels dirt back into the grave. They were both wearing dark clothes, and Root snatched his hat to tuck her hair into before she locked him in the trunk.

“I’ve dimmed the lampposts.” Root hadn’t even noticed. “As long as the man keeps quiet…”

“We wouldn’t have to worry about that if I killed him.”

“Miss Groves––”

“I know, I know.” She bends down to lift a large pile of dirt and fling it over the end of the hole. “But they did kill me first.”

Root’s exhausted by the time she finishes, but still does her best to make the grave look untouched. In the car, she finds a roll of grass to cover the mound of dirt. When she finally gets in the driver’s seat, it’s tempting to just take a nap right there. It’s not like she can go home, anyway. Instead, she starts driving. She can ditch the car somewhere within the shadow map––the longer it takes Samaritan to find, the better.

           


End file.
